• i 9 






ORATION 



DELIVERED BY 



MR. M. IRWIN DUNLAP 



AT 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 



AT 



GREENFIELD, OHIO 



SEPTEMBER 19th, 1901. 



goodness enthroned her in the 
hearts of mankind. Had she pos- 
sessed greatness she would have 
gone down in history as one of the 
few immortals. 

Napoleon was great not good. He 
was ieared not loved. McKinley was 
both great and good. He was loved 
not feared by his friends and he is 
one of the few who will not be for- 
gotten when marble crumbles and 
bronze doth fade. 

The most eloquent of all Ameri- 
cans standing at the tomb of Na- 
poleon weighed him in the balance 
and found him wanting. Realizing 
his greatness he deplored the ab- 
sence of goodness when he said "I 
thought of the orphans and widows 
he had made — of the tears that had 
been shed for his glory, and of the 
only woman that ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart by the cold 
hand of ambition. And I said I 
would rather have been a French 
peasant, and worn wooden shoes; I 
would rather have lived in a hut 
with a vine growing over the door, 
and the grapes growing purple in 
the kisses of the autumn sun, I 
would rather have been that poor 
peasant with my loving wife by my 
side, knitting as the day died out of 
the sky; I would rather have been 
that man and gone down to the 
tongueless silence of the dreamless 
dust than to have been Napoleon 
the Great." 

Thank God this eloquent but 



scathing denunciation cannot be 
hurled at the man we love. He 
was Napoleon and peasant com- 
bined. He rose from a humble po- 
sition to an exalted station by his 
own effort, but his ambition never 
stifled the impulses of his heart and 
his greatness never thwarted 
the charitable impulses of his 
nature. Orphans and widows never 
shed tears for his glory. The cold 
hand of ambition did not push aside 
the woman who loved him. 

The American people love td 
think of him saber in hand dashing 
forth in the defense of the flag. 
They love to think of him standing 
erect in the halls of Congress plead- 
ing his cause with magnetism and 
with power. They love to think of 
him as a peer among the rulers of 
the earth, but they prefer to think 
of him laying aside the scepter and 
the crown, turning a deaf ear to the 
plaudits of the world, and in the 
purple twilight sitting beside her, 
who now weeps at the open grave at 
Canton as she quietly knits as the 
day dies out of the sky. 

McKinley was a poet. His 
poems are not in verse, but in epi- 
gram and in prose. His mother 
lies dying. The cares of State are 
forgotten. The wires flash the ten- 
der message — "Tell mother I am 
coming" — and this poem of de- 
votion, this cystallized fragrance of 
the heart will be a lasting tribute to 
motherhood. He loved the fields, 



the flowers, the birds. "I want to 
see the trees they are so beautiful," 
a poem of the soul, a poem to na- 
ture by nature's nobleman. 

He was a friend, loyal and true. 
His ambition was great but to him 
friendship was a sacred tie, a hal- 
lowed plight of heart to heart 
which the dreams of destiny could 
not annul and the fires of ambition 
could not consume. Tested above 
all men in Occident or orient since 
the dawn of time, tempted with the 
coveted gem of Christendom, he 
stood unscathed and unsullied amid 
the clamor of king-makers and in 
the name of friendship refused the 
greatest gift in the power of man. 
His life has added luster to the 
charms of friendship and his re- 
fusal of the highest position in the 
world rather than betray a friend 
will be cherished by generations 
yet unborn. 

The deceased President was not 
an actor, he was real. He once 
plucked a rose from his bosom and 
placed it in the soiled hands of the 
engineer who had brought him safe- 
ly to his journey's end. One of the 
graceful acts of which his life was 
full. An act which if done by any 
other would have been considered 
common-place or a deed to obtain 
applause. Men may act when the 
skies are bright but they forget to 
act in the sudden storm. His acts 
and words were as noble and true in 
the sudden moment of his affliction 



as they were in the calm hour of re- 
flection. Love for wife, charity for 
the assassin, comfort of others, 
flashed across his bewildered mind 
as he stood on the brink of the 
grave crimson with his own blood. 

He possessed in a remarkable de- 
gree the power of drawing all men 
unto him. He was at ease in the 
drawing room of kings. He was at 
home in the cabin of the peasant. 
This day is not a day of formality; 
it is a day of grief and sadness. 
The millionare leaves his desk, the 
pauper leaves his hovel and weep 
together because both have lost a 
friend. 

The plow stands in the furrow. 
The music of the anvil is dead. 
The spindles are idle. The spot- 
less fields of Dixie are deserted. 
The flag which rides on the bosom 
of the deep is veiled in crepe. The 
countless sons of toil, the rulers in 
high places and the chiefs in the 
synagogues, in imagination at least, 
gather at the grave of the departed 
and weeping pay a last tribute of 
respect to the one so dearly loved. 

He had his enemies. A woman 
may live without enemies, but the 
man wh© has no enemies is either a 
puppet or a coward. He was loved 
bv friends and feared by foes. His 
enemies however were public not 
personal and amid the universal 
grief ot a stricken people enemy 
cannot be distinguished from friend 
for the sorrow of both is profound. 



He was human. He had faults, 
but his graces, his charity, his 
virtues were so great, so command- 
ing, so adorable that his defects 
shall be forever blotted out and re- 
membered no more against him. 

Washington placed himself upon 
a pedestal, a cold and super-human 
being to be admired but not ap- 
proached. He was great, he was 
good, but his heart never beat in 
sympathy with the people. Mc- 
Kinley was a man of the people. 
He shared their joys. He sympa- 
thized in their sorrows. His heart 
beat in unison with theirs and these 
traits of his character will be re- 
membered when people have for- 
gotten that he wore a sword or 
commanded the applause of the list- 
ening multitude. 

McKinley knew no north, no 
south, no east, no west. The prime 
ambition of his life was to lead the 
wandering misled boys in gray back 
to the old fireside and to instill in 
their minds the lesson which for 
thirty years had been incompre- 
hensible, that their sins had been 
forgiven and that the stars fnd 
stripes were theirs once more. 

The north was unprepared for the 
lesson from the master mind. We 
stood appalled, we thought our 
chieftain had gone mad, when the 
magnanimous McKinley stood amid 
the cotton fit Ids of Dixie and issued 
that wonderful decree of charity 
and amnesty, that ia the providence 



of God the time had come when 
this government should crown with 
oak her defamers and bedeck with 
roses the graves of the men who had 
battled for her destruction. But 
when we recovered from the shock 
we said "McKinleythou art right." 
And when the south recovered from 
her amazement she applauded her 
benefactor in the spirit of fraterni- 
ty. Above all men living and all 
men dead, our fallen leader dis- 
pelled the hostility and cemented 
north and south in bonds of love. 
The boys in faded gray and tattered 
blue today clasp hands over the 
speechless form of the great peace- 
maker who was slain in the hour of 
his triumph- just as the belated 
doves were bringing home the olive 
branches. 

Assassination and not lingering 
disease struck this man down in the 
plenitude of his power and useful- 
ness. In the words of the one near- 
est and dearest "They elected him; 
why did they kill him?" She did 
not know that he was killed for the 
sole reason that he had been elect- 
ed, for the sole reason that he was 
the visible embodiment of the State. 
His slayer was not his personal 
enemy, but an uncompromising foe 
to legalized society which McKin- 
ley represented. 

Through the web of history runs 
the crimson thread of atonement 
woven by an invisible hand and I 
believe by the same hand which in- 



stituted divine atonement when the 
veil of the temple was rent in twain. 
Blood, precious human blood has 
purchased and cleansed all that is 
good, all that is beautiful, all this is 
lovely, all that is immortal, in 
home, in state, in church. 

The American people were in a 
lethargic sleep, and that the scales 
might fall from our eyes, that the 
innocent of the future might be 
saved from the ravages of war with 
anarchy, theinfiuite God demanded 
atonement through personal sacri- 
fice. And as the Jews mingled 
with the incense of the altar the 
perfect dove and the lamb without 
blemish, so the High Priest of earth 
and heaven demanded the chief, the 
best, the purest and the dearest as 
a sacrifice on the altar for the 
safety of our country and the 
honor of onr flag. 

The most pathetic monument to 
devotion and self sacrifice that I 
have ever seen is the famous Lion of 
Lucerne overlooking the placid 
waters of the Swiss Lake. Carved 
out of a solid cliff the noble Lion 
reposes in a huge niche, suffering 
the agony of death, pierced to the 
heart by a poisoned dart, with his 
huge paws resting upon and defend- 
ing the white lilies of France. 
The Lion represents the Swiss guard 
who perished in the defense of a 
French Queen when French 
soldiers had deserted her. But to 
my mind that Lion also represents 



the martyred McKinley, pierced by 
the dart of the anarchist while de- 
fending the beautiful lilies, the 
fragrant lilies, the immaculate lil- 
ies of American liberty. 

He died for us. His dt ath must 
not be in vain. We must live true 
to his memory. Soberly, dispas- 
sionately, thoughtfully, without 
malice but with charity for the poor 
wretch who took his life, every man, 
woman and child who loves the 
stars and stripes should this day 
raise their right hands to Almighty 
God and swear by the open grave 
of the slain that since anarchy kill- 
ed McKinley, we shall annihilate 
anarchy. 

Allow me to paraphrase the 
words of Lincoln upon the field of 
Gettysburg and I am done. "It 
is for us, the living, rather to be 
dedicated here to the unfinished 
work that he has thus far so nobly 
carried on. It is rather for us to be 
here dedicated to the great task re- 
maining before us, that from this 
honored dead we tike increased de- 
votion to the cause for which he 
gave the last iu 1 l measure of de- 
votion; that we here highly resolve 
that Wm. McKinley shall not have 
died in vain; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom, and that government of 
the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the 
earth." 

"Goodby all, Goodby! It is God's 
way; His will be done." 



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